THE RULE OF THE SEEMING

John B. Willis

Human progress is the result of successive discoveries that the many things which have been called real are only apparent, the many declared to be true are only a seeming. From the time when, as a crawling child, he tries to pick the sunshine on the carpet, the life of the average mortal is, or should he, a continuous process of disillusionment, that ceaseless unlearning which all our educational schemes are designed simply to hasten.

Every one will recall the unnumbered surprises of his childhood and youth in this line, and the ofttimes discouraging discoveries of his maturer years, as one by one ideas thought to be firm and substantial as the hills have proved to be but the figments of human belief. It brings no pleasure to find that one has been fooled or deceived in any way, though it may ultimately yield us great gain. The experience often entails that biting sense of humiliation which tends to convert a wholesome caution into a prevailing distrust. It brings sadness, too, a lasting and poignant regret at thought of wasted time, effort, and opportunities,—of all that might have been, had we known.

Nevertheless, be they ever so painful, it is clear that these awakenings are absolutely essential to intellectual and spiritual advance. "Content with the seeming" means not only torpidity and unprogressiveness, it means mental degradation and death, and it is this fact that so intensifies the pitiful significance of prejudice. Let a man become so wedded to an undemonstrated theory, an unverified opinion, as to be quite satisfied with what he thinks and is, and his descent into the ways of the dogmatist and reactionary is made sure. He closes the door not only to his own larger and freer future, but to that of all those he may dominate.

Manifestly, the possibilities of growth are determined in large part for each individual by his hospitality to the truth, his discontent with the seeming. If, despite the sense of shame and humiliation incident to the discovery that our past thought and position is questionable, if not wholly wrong, we have the true self-interest and self-respect to welcome every promise of further illumination, the grace to rejoice in our escape from the thrall of fallacy; if we maintain a responsive attitude toward new ideas, and are sure that the truth in every department of thought is capable of satisfying proof,—then we may and speedily will voice our thankfulness in a pean of praise when we find, or are led to see, that any least factor of our past thinking is false. Yes, we then can and will rejoice, even though the foundations of our most sacred past conviction be shattered, and loyalty to our nobler faith subject us to the most trying criticism and misjudgment. We are learning to love the truth for its own sake, and quite regardless of its human setting; we are becoming sure that it can stand alone, and more, that it can hold us up; we are attaining to the essential faith and freedom of every Christian Scientist. We have forever escaped from the whilom sovereignty of the seeming.

John B. Willis.

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